Lest You Forget
by Alphawolf69
Summary: Some scars are easily visible. Others are beneath the surface, hidden within the recesses of the mind, but no less painful to endure. These are the origins of a survivor –and the price they have, as well as the price they continue to pay, for doing so.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Mass Effect or anything Bioware related, but my lawyer is working on it.

**Notes**: I think you should understand who this Shepard is by the end -review or PM me if you want clarification on anything. I've also tried to make this as canon-accurate as I can, but let me know if you notice anything glaringly wrong. Oh and by the way, I haven't really made it really obvious one way or the other about Shepard's gender so feel to picture them however you want.

_**Lest You Forget**_

Your whole life you have known only three truths.

Food keeps you alive.

Violence keeps you safe.

People cannot be trusted.

These truths were impressed into your mind at a young age. They are your first memories, before even those of your mother or father; in fact, you're pretty sure that they _are_ your real parents. After all, truth, like knowledge, cannot (without a reason, without remorse) abandon you. You don't care who your real parents are and after Akuze, you know they never cared about you. All you know is that one day you appeared fully grown (at the mature age of five), like a miniature Athena springing forth from the dust and grime in the megatropolis' forehead of humanity's homeworld.

Your faith and trust in these truths are absolute as they have kept you alive longer than most street kids. The rest of your gang –the 10th Street Reds– fended for themselves and you know, deep down, that while you lived (survived) down in the darkest parts of town, that if push came to shove, they would happily shove you into the wolves' jaws if it bought them time to run. Underneath the surface of the planet wasn't as safe as the government's public announcements tried to make out and you knew that one day it would be your body found face-down in a puddle of crimson liquid.

These thoughts were not truths you could prove, but their presence haunted your thoughts nonetheless as each day as you matured and grew, becoming more and more aware of the world –and of your place in it. You wondered what it would take for them to be proven true, and, if you _really_ wanted to find out.

In the end you couldn't take the waiting. The wondering. The (though you would die before admitting it) fearing.

All you knew was that if someone else was going to betray you, you were not going to sit around and let it happen.

So you enlisted.

Without a word, without a trace, you vanished from the seedy underworld that had been your (not home, never home) **place** for as long as you can recall. You sometimes wonder any of the gang ever looked for you -or simply cursed their missed opportunity. You wonder (but only late at night when you're alone in your room) if any of them miss you.

Then you remember the cheap installed and badly malfunctioning implants, the red sand, the cheap booze, the constant threat of batarian slavers and the deadly turf-wars. No, none of them will have remembered (or noticed) your existence (your absence) because they barely are aware of their own. Many of them (the ones you knew anyway) are probably already dead, their corpses littering a deserted corner of Earth's underbelly; rotting, alone and forgotten.

You wonder what the difference then, is between you and them. And if you really_ have_ escaped your previous life as easily as you thought.

It occurs to you that maybe this should scare you. But all you can feel is a numbness flooding your veins. Perhaps it is no surprise that throughout your training and service, the personal reports kept on you were exceptional in all but one area: the psych evaluation.

The doctor (you never bothered to remember her name) asked a long succession of questions, each more draining and tedious than the last (though you always wondered what relevance your 'real' –the word makes your lip curl even now– parents had in these inquisitions). When you eventually dredged up the mental energy to inquire why it mattered if civilians die or not as long as the mission was completed successfully, you received a carefully blank, yet penetrating stare and a series of furious scribbles on the clipboard in front of her. You remember feeling relief that you were (finally) able to answer a question correctly and were allowed leave shortly after. It vanished once your commanding officer cornered you in the mess hall hours later and all but dragged you to his office, demanding to know "_what the hell_" you were thinking.

Fortunately (for you) you never got to answer, as an urgent Alliance call was patched through, demanding a recon team immediately be dispatched to the planet Akuze and discover why it had dropped out of contact. You immediately saw your chance to escape his ranting and (like a fool) volunteered.

Akuze.

You don't remember ever hating a place (not even back on Earth) before but you know that you _**hate**_ Akuze. Your laws, the parents you had ignored as though they were inconvenient truths, reared their heads like Cerberus, the hell hound of Hades and tore the tenuous grasp you had on your sanity away.

Yes, you remember feeling hate (and fear –so much fear).

You did not (at the time) know what thresher maws were, but you do remember hearing their inhuman shrieks rend the clear night air, intertwining with the rapid burst of weapons' fire, terrified screams and exploding grenades (you hear them every time you dream). You remember the coppery taste of blood in your mouth, though whether it was yours or your comrades (your friends? your family? they were all and none of these things) you do not know. You remember the acrid stench of blood, death and bile saturating the air, choking the breath from your lungs.

Forty-nine marines died that night on Akuze.

You do not (want to) remember how you did not.

It is the question on everybody's lips (and eyes, you can see it in their eyes) when they meet you. You never answer.

If any good came from Akuze (and you know deep down, despite the spin the vids try to put on things –monuments don't bring men back to life– that nothing did) it was that the Alliance never placed you under such close scrutiny again. Even your psych files 'mysteriously' vanished from the Alliance database. This puzzled you for a while until you realised they did not want (couldn't afford) to know if your psyche was stable or not. They needed you. You were a symbol. A hero.

And heroes are not mentally disturbed; despite what you personally (know) **think**, but people seem to have labelled _you_ as one. You notice that people like to label things. It lets them believe (pretend) they are safe. That they are understood (how can they possibly understand you –you don't even understand _yourself_).

But you know that you're not a hero, because watching your entire squad be (torn apart by razor sharp alien limbs, melted by burning hot, vomit green acid) **taken out** by a hive of thresher maws is not something that would happen to a _hero_. Heroes are not the last ones left standing in a fight (heroes do not still have nightmares that make them wake, covered in sweat and panting in the dead of night with the screams of monsters and dying men ringing in their ears). You have given up telling people this. The hearty pats on the back and cries of "_modest to fault_!" hurt your heart and soul even more than your spine and ears.

Instead, you cling like a desperate child to the only parents who you have ever known, aware more than ever before in your life that abandoning or ignoring them will only bring further punishment on yourself. You do not want to survive another punishment, but you have the sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach (like the one time you tried to eat a rotten apple core when you were seven and so starving that your skinny arm was making your mouth water) that tells you that if you _were_ punished again…you would survive it. The thought almost breaks you. You can think of nothing worse than surviving. You don't long for death (though it has come snapping after your heels more times than you can count) but wonder why it never actually closes its jaws around your life and finally end the chase. Maybe you simply aren't worth the effort.

Time passes.

You complete mission after successful mission and are awarded medal after medal (you don't understand why they give them to you, the ones who truly deserve them are long dead) with so many 'special commendations' you have lost track of their number. You repeat the same pattern day after day, week after week; deploy, fight, kill and survive (at any cost). You do not connect with those in your command, shielding yourself from their open trust and admiration with an impenetrable mask.

There will not be another Akuze, you promise yourself. But of course you know that if (**when**) there is, you will be the only one behind to know of your failure (the thought both comforts and cuts at your heart). With a fierce dedication you remind yourself of the truths that form the foundation of your life and remain detached from everything. You hear marines call you 'Icicle' or 'Sub-Zero' and think that these are inaccurate. Frost always melts. Ice always thaws.

But gradually, without even meaning to, you find yourself living up to your nickname. Your manner begins to ease slightly and the memories (and nightmares) of Akuze start to soften (not forget, never forget). You slowly begin to do the small things you used to before; smirking (almost) at jokes, responding (sarcastically) to banter and stargazing (you like how easy this is in space, although you'd never admit that to anyone). The changes are tiny, almost insignificant, but the crew notices. They respond tentatively, awed and intimidated by your (personality) reputation. But silently, the entire time, you make certain to never forget your truths, because truths cannot be denied and doing so will only blind you to the danger when they decide to punish you again for ignoring them.

You reflect that it's probably either very funny, or incredibly sad that you still (literally) sleep with one eye open. Sometimes you ache for something that is beyond your reach; anything to take away the utter (loneliness) **monotony** of your own thoughts. And memories. But you don't know what it is you're missing –or how to look for it if you did.

It's been six years (seven weeks and four days) since Akuze and you are twenty-nine years of age (even though you feel much older). You now_ know_ with a dread certainty that you will never completely forget (or remember -and nor should you) what happened there. The scars are too deeply embedded upon your mind (and body, you gained some horrific physical scars from wounds you can-_not_ recall) and will never be removed. By now you're not sure if you even _want_ them to be. They have survived longer than almost anyone you know and will never leave you. Something that cannot be said for many (most) things in your life.

Accompanying this curious form of acceptance is an unexpected summons from Alliance HQ. A Captain called 'Anderson' has requested your expertise on (surviving?) an experimental shake-down run for a prototype (which you translate as 'riddled with errors and potentially unstable') turian/human hybrid technology (which you translate as 'back-door political BS') ship commissioned by the Citadel Council.

Her name is Normandy.


End file.
